PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) has impacted veterans of combat throughout history. With current advances in protective combat armor and in combat medical treatment, more and more of the soldiers who would have perished in the battlefield are being saved and returned home. While their physical wounds may heal, the traumatic events experienced on the battlefield continue to impact their personal, social, and vocational lives. This study explores the perceptions of veterans with respect to their vocational stability and the impact that PTSD has had on their vocational functioning. Eleven veterans were selected to participate in this qualitative study. These veterans were all veterans of combat actions ranging from the Vietnam War to the current military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Once selected, these veterans participated in interviews which explored their vocational history, their perceptions of their employment instability, and their perceptions of the impact that PTSD had on their vocational functioning and employment instability. Once the interviews were completed, they were transcribed and analyzed using open coding to identify common themes throughout the data. These themes included behavioral issues, perception of treatment, and their military experiences. Each theme was explored and interpreted to identify how PTSD impacted these participants in maintaining employment instability. Interpretations of the data lead to the conclusion that combat-related PTSD does, as the literature identifies, cause vocational instability. However, the data shows that while the participants did experience vocational instability, it was not because they were typically fired or dismissed from employment, but rather, they quit jobs prior to being fired. The participants were able to identify their triggers and stressors to the point that they simply quit their jobs when these triggers and stressors arose. Thus, much of their vocational instability may possibly have been prevented had they been able to effectively communicate their stressors and triggers to their employers and co-workers. Limitations of the study as well as implications for practice and future research are discussed. / text

Emerging research suggests that childhood adversities may increase both the risk and symptomology of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in our veteran population. Over 40% of our reintegrating military veterans return with significant mental health issues led by combatrelated PTSD. PTSD impacts veterans in numerous areas including unemployment, increased criminal justice involvement, increased treatment costs, divorce, co-morbid mental illness, greater levels of domestic violence, homelessness, high college dropout rates, suicide, and long term health problems. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of childhood adversities (abuse, neglect, and poverty) upon the severity of combat-related PTSD in veteran populations. Specifically, the researcher examines the direct effects of: (1) childhood trauma; (2) childhood neglect; and (3) childhood poverty (as assessed based on socioeconomic status [SES]) upon the severity of combat-related PTSD. This study of student veterans (n=102) receiving services from a veteran service center at a major metropolitan university in Central Florida is a non-experimental, explanatory, retrospective survey design using structural equation modeling (SEM) to test the relationships among study variables. Findings strongly supported a relationship between childhood trauma and neglect and the severity of combat-related PTSD. Similarly, findings also supported that no relationship existed between childhood SES and the severity of combat-related PTSD. Both childhood trauma and neglect were significantly associated with combat-related PTSD at an even greater effect than that of combat exposure. SES was not found to be significant in the severity of combat-related PTSD. The findings iv suggest that preventive screening policies to reduce costs and severity of combat-related PTSD might be needed.

The purpose of the current study was to examine a process model of combat-related and mental-illness related processes that explain increased likelihood of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This dissertation proposed the development of PTSD may occur due to cultural, social, and self-related pathways associated with veterans’ dual encounters with combat (i.e., severity) and mental illness symptoms. Participants were 195 military veterans recruited from multiple sites and strategies to maximize sample size and representation. Participants were asked to complete several self-administered assessment inventories, including: the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist-Military, the Trauma Symptom Checklist, the Combat Experiences scale, the Self-Stigma of Mental Illness Scale, an adapted version of the Iraq War Attitude Scale, a perceptions scale, an adapted version of the Likelihood of Disclosure Scale, the Unit Support Scale, the Post-Deployment Support Scale, the UCLA Loneliness Scale (Version 3), as well as covariates that included demographics and details of military service (e.g., deployment information). Overall, results revealed that the impaired social support indicator of social isolation was linked to PTSD, whereas impaired unit support and impaired postdeployment support were not predictive of PTSD. Results also revealed that it is the cultural stereotypes and stigma associated with military and war but not of mental illness that plays a role in social isolation and subsequently PTSD. Overall, evidence supports the combined explanations of combat-related processes and mental illness processes in understanding likelihood of PTSD.